The Natural Order
by jtav
Summary: Scholar Ling faces the consequences of victory.


It was one thing, Scholar Ling thought, to restore the natural order. It was another to see the consequences.

"Minister Sheng has no time for your petty complaints about your farm!" His skin turned an impressive shade of purple as Farmer Wa cringed. "Why did the Empress send me back to this pustule of a village?" he muttered under his breath, though not so quietly that Ling and Sky couldn't hear him, or the thinly-veiled accusation in his voice.

"Because she wants the Imperial City to remain standing?" Sky whispered, though there was a false note in his humor these days.

She only had to look around at the dull brown grass choking the courtyard and at Wa's lean and pinched face. The last time she had been in Tien's Landing, his face had been round. Two more years of drought, the sages said. They were fortunate that the Empire would only suffer what had originally been decreed before Sun Hai had usurped heaven. The Jade Empire would wane, but it would not fall.

It was harder to feel grateful when an emaciated cow mooed pitifully and an equally thin child ghost stood next to it. The poor died for lack of grain. Ling's eyes narrowed as she watched Sheng berate the farmer. He was as fat as ever. But then, people like him were always fine.

Finally, she could stand no more. "Perhaps if the illustrious minister could persuade the merchants to part with more silver, Wa might be able to see himself through the winter. Or start a business."

Sky brightened. "He might even open up the granaries and feed the people on Beggar's Pier. The lake still flows. Commerce continues, just as bustling and corrupt as ever it was. Surely such a brilliant minister could take advantage of this to feed the people, who are after all his first responsibility."

But Sheng's purple face turned pale. "Raise t-taxes? On the merchants?" He ran a finger around his collar. "The only thing more frightening than the Order of the Lotus is angry merchants." He gestured contemptuously at Farmer Wa. "He's only a nuisance. The merchants control everything here. They can make an Imperial minister's life uncomfortable. And quite short."

Ling forced herself to keep her voice even. No threats, no reminding him how easy it would be for her to make the merchants' lives quite short as well. That was not the way of the Open Palm. "Then consider it a favor to the woman who saved the town and who is a close, personal friend of the Empress. I'm sure I could put in a good word for you. You might even get brought back to the Imperial City." Hopefully, in a less damaging position. Lian was still cleaning up that mess in the Golden Way.

Sheng's eyes grew wide, and for a moment, it seemed like he might see reason. But then he shook his head. "My life has been nothing but trouble since I met you, Spirit Monk. It might've been better to let the town die the first time. I don't know why Heaven has removed its blessing from the Empire, but I'm sure you had something to do with it."

Sky put his hand on her shoulder. "Let's leave the minister alone so he can blame everyone else for his problems."

"Hmph."

Farmer Wa bowed to them when they were alone. "Thank you, most honored Spirit Monk and her companion. For what you tried to do."

Sky produced a bag of coins. "Take this. It should feed your family for a while."

Wa's fingers trembled as he stared at the coins. Fear warring with pride warring with desperation. Bags of silver did not just appear to poor farmers in the Jade Empire. But hunger was a more certain doom. He took the coins and bowed again, so low that his forehead nearly touched the ground. "May the heavens, the ancestors, the spirits, and whoever else bless you for this!" He straightened and walked along the broken cobblestones back toward his ramshackle farm.

"You're getting altruistic in your old age," Ling said with a smile. "Pickpocket the minister while I was arguing with him, did you?"

"I'm shocked that you would accuse me of such thievery!" Sky clutched his heart and staggered backwards. "I pickpocketed Merchant Jiang before we left. I never depend on the benevolence of an imperial minister."

"Wise man." But she couldn't stop staring at the brown grass. At the starving cow. And yes, at the ghosts. There were far fewer than there had been a year ago, but even with the Water Dragon shepherding the dead so the Celestial Bureaucracy could determine their place on the Great Wheel, new ghosts took their place. Those angry at failing farms and failing businesses. The ghostly child who did not understand why Mama couldn't afford to buy rice. A few of them had attacked her, sensing without knowing why that she was responsible for their misfortune. "I want to do more. I want the Empire to do more. No, I want—those coins aren't going to feed his family for the next two years."

"But they'll feed them for today." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I think it's time you and I paid a visit to the local granaries."

She managed to smile. Trust Sky to solve massive injustice with larceny and a little derring-do. And it was injustice, wasn't it? These people had had water, and now they didn't. Because the Celestial Bureaucracy had decreed it so. It was their place to die, the Jade Empires place to decline. The Water Dragon had said so. Ling shivered. She had fought against the usurpation of heaven by the Emperors Sun. And they had been power-hungry madmen. But for the first time, she understood that a virtuous person might wish the same thing. Only a heart of stone could watch the death of Tien's Landing and be unmoved.

That was not the way of the Open Palm. She took a deep breath and fingered the Dragon Amulet that was once more around her neck. _Your destiny is to preserve the natural order. Know your place. Be content with small charities, lest you share your master's fate._

The ghosts wafted through the air.

"I want to do more," she repeated. "I want to bring them water."

Sky opened his mouth and closed it again. "Like Li and Sun Hai? Didn't work out for them so well, if you remember. I don't really want to cut open a god. Or bar the way to the afterlife."

"Neither do I." But there had to be something. Master Li had spoken of forcing the dead to their rest. What knowledge of spirits and heavens lay in ruined temples of a dead people? Her people, that she knew nothing of? "I'm going back to Dirge. I didn't really get a chance to sort through all of the scrolls when we were there. Maybe there's something I can use. A way to bend the laws of heaven."

"You mean trick gods? Trick the Water Dragon?"

"No more starving children or starving farmers."

Sky was silent for a long time. "I've never conned a deity before. And I know one who would be happy to lend us his flyer."

May the heavens have mercy upon them.


End file.
